The Timeless Isle is perhaps the most alt-friendly piece of content Blizzard has ever come out with, save perhaps the heirloom items. You can gear up an alt to the point where they can step into the Siege of Orgrimmar raid next week on LFR without having done a single thing since hitting 90 (other that right-clicking their timeless pieces and maybe getting some gems and enchants, one hopes.) Actually, that's not true. There are no timeless weapons. But seriously, this will make things way easier on them.
One of the constant refrains we've heard from Blizzard in response to the complaints about how Mists was not Alt-Friendly was that they figured the whole point of playing an alt was to play it, and part of playing was gearing up.
So first, let's talk about why Mists was perhaps not terribly alt-friendly.
The primary culprit here is the requirement of a reputation level with certain factions before purchasing Valor rewards. In the past, reputation gear and valor gear were separate things, so if you wanted to eschew reputations, you needed only to run a bunch of dungeons.
Not only was there this sort of gating, but they also made reputations far harder to earn by putting them behind daily quest grinds. Now, as an alternative to the VP grind, I would be ok with this, but I think we first need to talk about what an alt is:
An alt is a secondary character - one who is not your first into a new dungeon or the first to be leveled up in the early days of an expansion. I don't know how other people do it, but I tend to spend one or two days working on an alt before returning to my main. I'm happy to spend a weekend running dungeon after dungeon to get them some new gear, but it's not a sustained thing.
The problem with the daily quests was that one could not do it in short bursts. You could only make significant progress if you played in sustained, long periods of time.
I actually don't mind the idea that reputation should only be gained by doing stuff significant to the given faction, but by gating time-wise through daily quests (or a single dungeon championing per day, or a single work order on the farm, which is already gated by reputation,) that's how you make things hard on alts.
If VP rewards were de-coupled from reputation rewards, or if there was a rep that was associated with the actions that actually gain you VP, and that was where the VP-cost items came from, then I'd be ok with it.
The other major culprit is LFR. Now, LFR on its own is great. In fact, it's perfect for people with alts. I am the main tank for my guild, so 99% of the time I run with them, I'm bringing my Protection Paladin. Yet if I want to play my Warlock or my Rogue, or whatever, LFR lets me go in there.
However, raiding is a huge time commitment. If you're running the raids on your main, chances are you're spending several hours there per week, whether on LFR or with your guild. Given the twenty-minute-if-you're-lucky queue times and the fact that a wing can take several hours, it's easy to feel burnt out on a raid.
In the past, dungeons were a great way to play your alts. I took tons of toons through the Frozen Halls or Hour of Twilight dungeons. Committing only 40 minutes or so is a far smaller burden when you just feel like being a Mage for a bit.
Mists has been very thin on 5-mans (something that they at least claim they're going to correct. I'd love to see a return to the number of dungeons we had in BC and Wrath.) The complete focus on raiding as the sole manner in which all toons are meant to progress is what I would call the biggest issue.
Regarding arguments that making lots of dungeons would mean fewer raids, I just don't buy it. BC and Wrath had lots of huge raids and plenty of cool dungeons, and we did not suffer for it. And the team is supposed to be even bigger now. So I don't know where those arguments are coming from. BC has 15 dungeons to Mists' 9, and yet we got Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern, Battle for Mount Hyjal, Black Temple, and Sunwell Plateau.
I'm happy that the Timeless Isle is giving people a big opportunity to gear up alts, but ultimately, I don't really think this free gear is what anyone has in mind for encouraging alts. I agree that alts should be played to gear up. The only thing that we need is better opportunities to do so.
So, in conclusion, here are my steps to better alt-friendliness:
1. Double the new dungeons in the expansion (some of these can be in later patches, with perhaps previous-tier LFR-quality gear.)
2. Make separate rep-based gear and VP gear (I know in 5.4 there is no new VP gear, but I think the point of VP gear is to protect against bad luck streaks, so I'd like them to bring it back.) The VP gear can be gated behind a reputation, as long as there are many ways to get said rep, including dungeon-running. If, say, in X.2 you come out with a new raid and two dungeons, you should have the raid and the dungeons both award the new VP rep.
3. Keep up the good work on outdoor content and Scenarios. Personally, I'm not a big fan of scenarios, but alternatives are always good. The Isle of Thunder was the best daily quest hub yet, and the Timeless Isle is an exciting experiment in free-form outdoor content. I don't want you to get rid of this, only add it on top of the stuff we've already had in previous expansions.
I'm sure there are other ideas that might pop up, but hopefully Blizzard will pursue some if not all of these avenues. Don't get me wrong, Mists has had fantastic content, but I think that opening up new avenues to empower your character and your alts will make the game a lot more fun.
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